1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to promotional call-in contests, and more specifically, to a method and system for receiving, logging, answering, controlling, and forwarding calls from contestants.
2. Description of the Background
Radio stations generally broadcast twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, during which time they earn revenue. Though there are no standards regulating the number of commercial minutes per hour, the market drives the amount of commercial time because consumers tend not to tolerate an over-abundance of commercials in lieu of programming. Commercial stations tend to broadcast in the range of ten to eighteen minutes per hour of commercial time, including announcements such as traffic and weather updates. Thus, stations may try to increase revenue by increasing prices. However, prices are also market driven. A better alternative is to find other “off-air” sources of advertising revenue, and this can be accomplished by combining promotional contests with commercial broadcasting. Many radio stations currently use “winning caller” contests to promote the radio station and its sponsors. Typically, an on-air disc jockey will announce that the “nth” caller will win “x”. For example, the disc jockey will announce that the tenth caller wins tickets to a football play-off game. Once the announcement is made, contestants begin calling the radio station. Radio stations generally dedicate one telephone line to receive the calls. Thus, most callers repeatedly receive a busy signal and continue to redial the radio station. For example, if 500 listeners call within the first ten seconds after the announcement, 499 receive a busy signal. Callers lucky enough to actually get through and not get a busy signal are told that they are not a winner, unless, of course, they are the tenth caller. The tenth caller, or “winner” is told to stay on the line until someone records their identifying information. All callers after the winning call receive a busy signal or no answer. The result is frustration and dissatisfaction on the part of all but the one winning caller. This type of “winning caller” contest is most popular with radio stations nationwide, but is also used in other promotional methods, such as direct mail, print ads and store banners. Indeed, for radio stations, it generates listener interest and thus promotes the radio station. However, the frustration that may be attributed to the “non-winning caller” experience may often contribute to consumer dissatisfaction.
Methods for controlling telephone calls are well demonstrated in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,069 to Mankovitz shows a method and apparatus for providing a reply to a telephone caller in response to an abbreviated input string. A message is received from a telephone caller during a telephone call and supplemental information is derived which relates to the caller and the call. Using the message from the caller in combination with the supplemental information, an appropriate message reply is identified and provided to the caller. The supplemental information would generally include the caller telephone number and the time and date of the call. However, in the foregoing and all other known examples, providing information in response to telephone requests is limited to streamlining the method for input of data from the telephone caller or in capturing the data from the caller for subsequent use. None of the foregoing nor any other known systems provide a method of receiving, logging, answering, controlling, and forwarding telephone calls from contestants, if necessary.
It would be greatly advantageous to provide a method and computer architecture for logging, answering, controlling, and forwarding telephone calls from call-in contestants, such that every caller receives a positive response, acknowledgment and notification of their caller number in the queue, and an opportunity to obtain other benefits, such as discounted items. The present method automates the call-in process, removes the negative experience for the consumer, and adds advertising revenue and value to the station and its sponsors. The radio station only needs to answer to the winning caller, all callers, including those callers after the winning caller, receive a response, and the stations can generate revenue from the calls by advertising. Such a method would benefit the consumer, the advertiser and the radio station. Consumers benefit because they have a positive experience when they participate in call-in contests, rather than frustration and dissatisfaction. The advertiser benefits by providing a method to target consumers with instant feedback advertising. Finally, the radio station is benefitted in having an additional source of revenue and improved public relations.